


Forget-Me-Not

by Rotpeach



Series: The Great Tumblr Rehoming of 2018 [28]
Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novels)
Genre: Flowers, Horror, Kidnapping, Memory Loss, Other, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2019-09-27 16:57:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17165765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: There are flowers and a note on your kitchen counter. You aren't sure how they got there.





	Forget-Me-Not

It starts with chrysanthemums, red and white, stems intertwined in a glass vase on the kitchen counter, and you did not put them there.

You’re mostly sure of this. Mostly, because sometimes things escape you—names roll back from the tip of your tongue and important dates evaporate from your brain, so you don’t trust yourself to remember everything. You rely on pastel-colored sticky notes, dotting the walls, hanging off of the edges of shelves, on the sides of the TV and sticking out of your desk drawers, little reminders scrawled upon each of what is important.

(When did you start doing that? That, too, is lost, because you didn’t think to write it down.)

There is a note attached to the vase, too, pink and heart-shaped with your name carefully penned in cursive, and you know you did not write it. You would be touched that someone thought of you, that they would make such a thoughtful gesture, but the flowers and the vase appeared overnight, standing where they are now when you went to get a snack from the kitchen at midnight, and you’d frozen at the foot of the stairs and glanced anxiously around the room for any signs of an intruder, but there was nothing. 

You check the locks again. You make the sure the windows are shut tight. You check in the closets and under the bed. You are alone, and the house smells of lavender.

( _“You like lavender,”_ one of the notes proclaims.)

Looking at the flowers makes you feel uneasy and yet it feels wrong to throw them away, so you pick up the vase to move into another room, passing by a planter full of daisy seedlings on the window sill and some ferns growing out of a lidless jar by the stairs and a pair of fig trees standing sentinel outside of your bedroom. 

The chrysanthemums end up shoved into a corner in the hallway behind a stalk of hollyhock and a spider plant so you won’t have to look at them, and you feel better already—accomplished, even—so you pull a book off of the shelf and drape yourself over the couch to read. 

(It would be nice to go outside, but the note on the door handle says, **_“Do not leave under any circumstances,”_** so instead,)

You listen to the wall clock tick the seconds away and drift off.

*

You dream that you are in the woods, that the moon is bright and the air is cool, and you are running, you are ducking beneath branches and leaping over thorn bushes and you are screaming for somebody to help you, but you are all alone.

You look back over your shoulder and see a deer peering out at you from between the trees. 

*

You wake, startled, by the harsh whistle of a tea kettle in the kitchen and scramble to your feet, rushing to turn off the stove. There is a note on the cupboard that says, “you drink tea every day at noon to ease your anxiety,” and you honestly aren’t sure that it was there before. The tea is pleasantly fragrant and though you pour some into a mug, you set it on the counter and stare at the murky liquid. You are reminded

(of running?)

of something

(of being chased? Of losing your footing in the mud?)

unpleasant

(of being tripped. No, of being grabbed. Of someone holding you down?)

but it escapes you.

( _“You have strange dreams sometimes,”_ says the note on your bedside table. _“But it’s okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”_ )

You sigh and lift the teacup to your face, inhaling the herbal aroma and 

(wait wait _wait_ it’s coming back to you now it’s all coming back you were in the woods you were running through the woods and you heard footsteps behind you gaining on you but you were lost and it was dark and the ground was wet with fresh rain and there was a deer peeking out of the underbrush when you looked back over your shoulder there was a deer in the woods you were not alone _youarenotalone_ )

take a sip to quell you racing thoughts and soothe an oncoming headache.

Your eyelids feel heavy and you slump over the table, the cool surface comfortable against your heated skin. You think, maybe, you hear a door open.

(But the note on the refrigerator tells you that sometimes you hear things, and that you don’t have to worry.)

*

You dream that you are in the woods, that the moon is bright and the air is cool, and you are running, you are ducking beneath branches and leaping over thorn bushes and you are screaming for somebody to help you, but you don’t think you’re alone.

You look back over your shoulder and see a deer peering out at you from between the trees, and it takes a few slow steps onto the path as though it means to follow you.

It has human eyes.

*

You wake feeling sick, woozy and nauseated, and you nearly trip over your chair trying to get up. The open blossoms of the camellias in the corner make you dizzy and you stagger down the hall, fumbling with the bathroom door just as your legs give out. You crawl across the tile floor to the toilet and barely make it in time when you start dry-heaving, clutching the toilet bowl and vomiting nothing but bitter and pale bile. 

Your head is spinning and your heart is racing. You feel yourself breaking out in a cold sweat. You’re afraid. 

(“You have a weak stomach,” says a note on the mirror that you don’t remember being there before. You don’t remember a lot of things, but that, that just seems strange, doesn’t it? You don’t know, you don’t know anymore.)

A shadow falls across you and a gentle hand rests on the small of your back. Someone murmurs, “there, there,” and wipes the sweat from your brow. You don’t know what’s happening.

(You are not alone.)

*

You were in the woods. The moon was bright and the air was cool, and you were running. You screamed for help, but no one could hear you, no one but the deer, poking its head out from between the trees, curious.

(No. Not curious.)

It didn’t trot after you, though, it broke into a sprint, it looked at you with its pale blue eyes and it—

(No. It was not a deer.)

He caught you, he pinned you down with hands, human hands, and his shoulder, his human shoulders tensed and shuddered as he looked at you, as he pressed his human forehead to yours and whispered with his human tongue,

(and this, this you are sure of, this you remember,)

“Never run from me again.”

*

You scream.

He stumbles back when you shove him, thrown off-balance, and you scramble to your feet and make a dash for the front door as everything around you starts to shift and change, the colors all running together, the walls dripping, the air growing hot and suffocating. The plants are swaying and making a low, heavy sound as though they are breathing

(or sighing, pitying you).

The dirt-filled pail with the zinnias? That was left in the night, too. That was left with a note with your name, and so was the orange tree, and so were the daises. You are remembering, you are getting it all back, it’s all climbing back up your throat and into your brain, it was just pushed deep down, drowned and buried within you, but it’s all coming back now.

You trip on something with spindly vines and heart-shaped leaves, accidentally breaking the pot and scattering soil all over the floor, and you almost fall but he’s there to catch you. 

(He is always there to catch you.)

“Careful,” he says, and he sounds scared, like he has any reason to be. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

You twist in his arms, pushing at his chest and clawing at his face and you scream, “Who the fuck are you?” trying, trying to get away, the door is so close, you can see it, you could reach it if you were just a little closer—

(You’ve done this before, you know you have. You remember now, you remember being here, fighting him, your fingers brushing against the sticky note that orders you to never leave, but then)

He drops you, letting you hit the floor like a ton of bricks, and you feel your head crack open on the hard floor and blood pooling beneath you.

“Fine,” he mutters, “if you really want to leave so badly,” and then he just walks away. You groan in pain, rolling onto your side, but you’re too dizzy to get up again. There’s a vase of poppies and anemone flowers next to the door, red and white,

(red and white like the chrysanthemums. He did this. He did this to you.) 

and you stare at them until they start to blur together, until the colors start to run like paint on a canvas. You’re afraid, you think you can feel it all leaving you again, fleeing from you like frightened deer in the woods, shriveling like dead flowers.

You pull yourself into a ball and you cry, and you can’t remember why you’re doing it.

*

You dream that you are going on a walk in the woods, following a trail you know in the evening, bird cries echoing into an orange sky. 

There is a deer waiting at the tree line, hiding among the low-lying branches shyly. You smile and you walk towards it.

*

It’s perfectly silent when you wake up in the morning, yawning and stretching in bed. 

Your head hurts. You can’t remember why. A note on your bedroom dresser explains, _“You fell and hurt yourself yesterday,”_ and you relax. 

You slowly make your way to the kitchen for breakfast, passing a collection of your favorite houseplants on the way—the hollyhock, the spider plant, and a vase of chrysanthemums, red and white. The plants make you feel better.

At least, until you get to the kitchen, and find a glass bowl full of morning glories tangled together, a heart-shaped note with your name attached. That’s strange. You don’t like that. But you’re sure someone brought them and you just don’t remember. There’s a lot you don’t remember, after all.

It’s going to take a lot more than a few flowers to make you start worrying.


End file.
